The Dancing Girls

by M.M. Chouinard

Overview

When victims are found in dancing poses, Detective Jo Fournier immediately sees the pattern, but how can a serial killer get to victims all over the country?

When loving wife Jeanine Hammond is found dead in a small leafy town in Massachusetts, newly promoted Detective Jo Fournier is shocked to her core. Why leave her body posed like a ballerina? Why steal her wedding band and nothing else? Hungry for answers, Jo questions Jeanine's husband, but the heart-breaking pain written on his face threatens to tear open Jo's old wounds. It's the same pain she felt when her boyfriend was cruelly shot dead by a gang in their hometown of New Orleans. She couldn't get justice for him, but she's determined to get justice for Jeanine's devastated family.

But before Jo can get answers, another woman is found, wedding ring stolen, body posed in the same ritualistic way.

Digging through old files, Jo makes a terrifying link to a series of cold cases. She knows a serial killer is on the loose, but nobody will listen to the truth—not her bosses, nor the FBI. Still, Jo won't let her superiors keep her from stopping the murderer in his tracks, even if it means the end of her career.

Just as she is beginning to lose hope, she finds messages on the victims' computers that feel like the crucial missing link. But she knows the murderer is moments away from selecting his next victim. Will she be able to take down the most twisted killer of her career before another innocent life is lost?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538754467
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	05/11/2021
Series:	Detective Jo Fournier , #1
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	396,461
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

M.M. Chouinard's first fiction story was published in her local paper when she was eight, and she fell in love with Agatha Christie novels not long after. While pursuing a Ph.D in psychology and helping to found the first U.S. research university of the new millenium, the stories kept rattling around inside her skull, demanding to come out. For sanity's sake, she released them. 
 

Editorial Reviews

03/29/2021

Oakhurst, Mass., police detective Jo Fournier, the heroine of Chouinard’s well-crafted debut and series launch, spends months fruitlessly pursuing the case of a middle-aged woman whose strangled body was found in a hotel room before she’s told to shelve it. Jo takes a few days off to visit her father in New Orleans, where she learns that another woman has been strangled in her hotel room; like the first victim, her body was arranged in an unusual position and her wedding ring removed. Jo believes that the two murders are the work of a serial killer. Chapters following Jo and her team’s methodical investigation into the world of cyber-gaming alternate with those told from the point of view of the killer. By focusing on the lives of the killer’s prey, Chouinard raises these innocent, unhappy women from merely being pieces in a puzzle and lends greater urgency to the pursuit of their murderer. The action builds to a sublimely satisfying final twist. Readers will eagerly await Jo’s next outing. Agent: Kathryn Taussig, Bookouture. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"The action builds to a sublimely satisfying final twist. Readers will eagerly await Jo’s next outing."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

04/23/2021

This new series features detective Josette "Jo" Fournier, a New Orleans native now living in Oakwood, MA. After 15 years on the force, Jo has just been promoted to lieutenant, when an out-of-town woman attending a business conference is found murdered in a hotel room. Her body is positioned as if doing ballet, and her wedding ring is missing. Jo tracks down many leads with her former partner, but the trail goes cold. Then a similar murder takes place in New Orleans, where Jo is visiting her father; her gut tells her a serial killer is at work, but she has a hard time convincing other law enforcement agencies that her hunch is correct. Jo's torn between the demands of her new position and the pull of working hands-on in a murder investigation; she must find the elusive connection between the two dead women before another victim is targeted. VERDICT This novel is not only a police procedural, but a psychological study of a serial killer. However, the many continuous chapters focused on the killer and the victims disrupt the flow of the investigative plot. Readers will be pleased with a clever twist at the end. Future books in the series would benefit from more focus on the character development of Jo and her team.—Jean King, West Hempstead P.L., NY

Library Journal